A lucky Australian angler in Vava'u landed a massive Black Marlin - weighing in at 328.8 kg ( 723lbs), a new Tongan all-tackle record, making a great end to the year 2005 for Vava'u sport fishing.

It was Christopher Miley's first billfish and he landed it on a 60 kg line after a two hours 15 minute fight, fishing from the MV Hakula skippered by Jeff Le Strange of the Hakula Lodge with his deck hand Ki'i.

"The black marlin put on the best display of leaps grey hounding that I have ever seen, and most of the action was closet to the boat," said Jeff, who was fishing right up to the end of the year.



"New Year's Eve was spent looking for Billfish # 40 to end another great year, and we were not to be disappointed when at 10.15 am right out in front near the old middle FAD position we boated a new Tongan record Black Marlin 328.8 kg," he said.



The Black Marlin caught by Christopher Miley beats all the previous records by a big margin. Jeff said that the previous all tackle record holder was S. Meek landing 263 kg on a 37 kg line, fishing on the Makaira in 1996 in Vava'u. The previous line class record for 60kg was only 67kg held by Dave Grant fishing on Reel Obsession in 2000 in Vava'u.

Christoper used a Reel 80w Shimano Tiagra, with Rod Kilwell light fiber 130lb bent butt chair and Lure McGoo soft head purple and pink.